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Show 8'72 DAR WINIANA. ther and explain the cause of the symmetry and how abortive organs ca~e to be, is more to the purpose, but it introduces quite another principle than that of design. The difficulty recurs in a somewhat different form when an organ is useful and of exquisite perfection in some species, but functionless in another. An organ, such as an eye, strikes us by its exquisite and, as we say, perfect adaptation and utility in some animal; it is found repeated, still useful but destitute of many of its adaptations, in some animal of lower grade ; in some one lower still it is rudimentary and useless. It is asked, If the first was so created for its obvious and actual use, and the second for such use as it has, what was the design of the third ~ One more case, in which use after all is well subserved, we cite frop1 the article already much quoted from : "It is well known that certain fishes (Pleuronecta) display the singul~rity of having both eyes on the same side of their head, one eye being placed a little higher than the other. This arrangement has its utility ; for the Pleuronecta, swimming on their side quite near the bottom of the sea, have little occtlsion for their eyesight except to observe what is going on above them. But the detail to which we would call notice is, that the original position of the eyes is symmetrical in these fishes, and that it is only at a certain point of their development that the anomaly is manifested, one of the eyes pasSing to the other side of the head. It is almost inconceivable that an intelligent being should have selected such an arrangement; and that, intending the eyes to be used only on one side of the head, he should have placed them originally on different sides., Then the waste of being is enormous, far beyond the common apprehension. Seeds, eggs, and other germs, are designed to be plants and animals, but not EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 3'73 one of a thousand or of a million achieves its destiny. Those that fall into fitting places and in fitting num-. bers find beneficent provision, and, if they were to wake to consciousness, might argue design from the adaptation of their surroundings to their well-being. But what of the vast majority that perish ~ As of the light of the sun, sent forth in all directions, only a minute portion is interc~pted by the earth or other planets where some of it may be utilized for present or future life, so of potential organisms, or organisms · begun, no larger proportion attain the presumed end of their creation. " Destruction, therefore, is the rule ; life is the exception. We notice chiefly the exception-namely, the lucky prize-winner in the lottery-and take but little thought about the losers, who vanish from our field of observation, and whose number it is often impossible to estimate. But, in this question of design, the losers are important witnesses. If the maxim 'audi alteram partem' is applicable anywhere, it is applicab~e here. We must hear both sides, and the testimony of the seed fallen on good ground must be corrected by the testimony of that which falls by the wayside, or on the rocks. When we find, as we have seen above, that the sowing is a scattering at random, and that, for one being provided for and living, t.en thousand perish unprovided for, we must allow that the existing order would be accounted as the worst disorder in any human sphere of action." It is urged, moreover, that all this and much more applies equally to the past stages of our earth and its immensely long and varied succession of former inhabitants, different from, yet intimately connected with, the present. It is not one specific creation that the question has to deal with-as was thought not very |